Proper ads placement matters most if you want to maximize your earnings (which is specially true with Adsense). One of the best ads placement in Classipress classifieds site is in the main listing where the ads are more conspicuous together with the ads postings. Visitors on your site are more exposed to the ads since they form part in the listings. See sample below;
And so here’s the code to do just that;
This is a part of a series of tips collected from the officiall Classipress forum and presented it here with its own category just for your browsing convenience. Yes, it is somewhat a daunting task to look for answers in the forum for a specific topic with its jungle of information.
And so here’s the first one and with a scenario to improve your Classipress classifieds site and lure first time visitors to register. That is if you want a large banner be it an animated flash or a static image inviting the visitors to create an account but you don’t want it shown to the logged in users.
Here’s a peek of Classipress wordpress classifieds theme latest iteration (Version 3.0) which is estimated to be released on the later part of October.
Here you will see images have been moved up to the top and clicking on the thumbnails will replace the larger image.
Private messaging feature is one thing that Classipress is lacking. Currently, buyers can only be contacted by the seller through email and or through the other posted contact information such as phone numbers and etc. This is not a Classipress limitation but rather of the WordPress platform.
WordPress just does not allow your users to communicate with each other. Though you can use some forum plugins to add private messaging functionality but they are quite heavy specially if you don’t need a forum yet on your site. Also the updates might not be focused on improving the messaging features at all. Now, the lack of private messaging option has been answered by the WordPress User Messages plugin.
Previously, I wrote tips on using the old post warning plugin called the old post alert. As I have stated on that post, this kind of plugin is somewhat necessary if you have your Classipress Classifieds as a free service and you don’t want to prune the user submitted ads for SEO purposes.
Though the plugin works just fine but its limited and no configuration option at all makes it difficult to customize according to your needs. For instance, you cannot change the old post notice text unless you have to tinker with its code. Also, the alert notice is placed after the comment submit button which does not give prior warning to the reader that the post or ad is already old.
With Classipress classifieds site, you have the option to automatically delete an ad after a specified period but it will not be good in the eyes of the search engine and SEO as a whole. This is so because, your deleted ad would still come out in search engine result and once clicked the searcher will then be directed to the 404 error page. Also, if you opt to have the ads deleted, your content will also be diminished and again not good for SEO.
For this reason and since my classifieds site is a free service, I choose not to delete the ads. I just inform my classifieds site visitor that the particular ad is already old. And for this, I use a plugin called the Old Post Alert Plugin.
One of Classipress best feature is the inclusion of Google Maps. Once the user entered a street address, his posting will automatically show a map based on the given location. This is really a cool and useful feature specially for Real Estate Classipress site as users would no longer have to include a map image on their real property ads listings. This feature has made Classipress one of the best wordpress classifieds theme there is.
I prefer to have the Classipress Google map to default in hybrid mode because it is more visually appealing than the simple map. The hybrid map is a combination of a map and satellite imagery that which I find better graphically and visually. It is also very useful for Classipress Real Estates Classifieds sites because it can provide a bird’s eye view of the listed property at first glance. However, the Classipress Google map default display is on simple street map.
Update your ads/posting by embedding images on the comments thread in Classipress
Most forums nowadays have a buy and sell section. What makes them more interactive is that you can make a reply on a particular topic/thread and embed images and even videos on it. Though you can edit your original forum post but you can also make an update on your thread by simply adding a reply. This is what makes a forum based classifieds more upbeat.
And so I want to have this kind of interactivity on my Classipress classifieds site. Isn’t it good for you and your user to be able to update their ads/postings with images by simply embedding it on the comment thread?
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